The advertisement industry is always thinking of new methods of reaching the most consumers at a minimal cost. One of these methods involves only distributing select advertisements to consumers who will likely be interested in the products or services in those selected advertisements. This method is called addressable advertising.
FIG. 1A illustrates an example conventional distribution system 100.
As illustrated in the figure, distribution system 100 includes a set-top box 102 and a service provider 104. Service provider 104 includes a network content provider 106 and an advertisement library 110. Network content provider 106 includes network content to be provided to set-top box 102. Advertisement library 110 contains a plurality of advertisements, including an advertisement content 112, an advertisement content 114, an advertisement content 116 and an advertisement content 118. Set-top box 102 includes a processing portion 120 and an acquisition portion 122.
Set-top box 102 is operable to receive information from service provider 104 through a plurality of data streams, including a data stream 126, a data stream 128, a data stream 130, a data stream 132 and a data stream 134. Set-top box 102 is further operable to output a signal 140 to a television (not shown). A data stream may be any stream of data that flows from a source to a destination, for example video data from a service provider to a set-top box.
Network content provided by network content provider 106 is arranged to be transmitted though data stream 126. Advertisement content 112 is arranged to be transmitted through data stream 134. Advertisement content 114 is arranged to be transmitted through data stream 132. Advertisement content 116 is arranged to be transmitted through data stream 130. Advertisement 118 is arranged to be transmitted through data stream 128.
Processing portion 120 is arranged to receive and process data from any one of data streams 126, 128, 130, 132 and 134 by way of acquisition portion 122. Acquisition portion 122 is operable to acquire one of data streams 126, 128, 130, 132 and 134 and to provide content respectively thereon to processing portion 120.
In operation, set-top box 102 is used to present desired content, for example a movie, on a specific data stream. To accomplish this, processing portion 120 instructs acquisition portion 122 to acquire a data stream where the desired content, e.g., movie, is being transmitted. When a data stream is acquired, acquisition portion 122 may forward content to processing portion 120 to be processed and output as signal 140 to a television.
Transitioning may be any known form of changing from one data stream to another data stream, non-limiting examples of which include; a set-top box changing from receiving one frequency to receiving another frequency on a broadcast television system; a service provider changing from providing one frequency to a set-top box to providing another frequency to the set-top box on a switched digital video television system; and changing from one service provider to another service provider on an Internet Protocol television system. The time needed and the actions needed for this transition process are dependent on the type of set-top box and service provider in use. Also, processing portion 122 is not able to present content or advertisements while acquisition portion 122 is transitioning from one data stream to another data stream. For example, if a user is watching a television program and decides to change the data stream, the set-top box will not present anything while it is transitioning to the new data stream. This is called dead air.
For purposes of explanation, in distribution system 100, presume acquisition portion 122 is arranged to acquire data stream 126 to receive network content provided by network content provider 106. Before network content provided by network content provider 106 can be transmitted to set-top box 102, network content provider 106 arranges the content such that gaps for advertisements are present, creating a network content packet 124.
Network content packet 124 includes information set-top box 102 will use to present network content provided by network content provider 106. This may include audio and video portions of network content provided by network content provider 106. Network content packet 124 will also include a given time to start the advertisement break. An indicator for set-top box 102 to change data streams, i.e., a transition signaling, is typically contained in a known packet identifier on the data stream that set-top box 102 is currently receiving. This signaling will not be available while transitioning from one data stream to another data stream. An illustration of this can be found in FIG. 2.
FIG. 2 illustrates how content and advertisements are combined in set-top box 102.
As illustrated in the figure, an advertisement break 202 is included in network content provided by network content provider 106. Advertisement break 202 can be of any predetermined length of time to accommodate a predetermined number of advertisements and allocate the appropriate time needed for transitioning from one data stream to another data stream. In this example, advertisement break is long enough to accommodate two advertisements, advertisement content 114 and advertisement content 118, and three times for transitioning, a transitioning time 204, a transitioning time 206 and a transitioning time 208.
As discussed previously, transitioning times can vary depending on the type of set-top box and the service provider being used, for example, some set-top boxes may have a transitioning time of two seconds, whereas other set-top boxes may have a transitioning time of 1 second. Presume for purposes of discussion, in this example, transitioning times 204, 206 and 208 each have a duration of two seconds. In other words, it will take set-top box 102 two seconds to transition from acquiring one data stream to acquiring another data stream.
When it is time to transition to the first addressable advertisement, processing portion 120 instructs acquisition portion 122, by way of signal 136 to transition to the data stream where that advertisement can be found. This is illustrated in FIG. 1B.
FIG. 1B illustrates distribution system 100 when set-top box 102 is acquiring to the first target advertisement.
As illustrated in FIG. 1B, network content packet 124 is no longer being delivered to set-top box 102. Processing portion 120 has instructed acquisition portion 122 to transition to data stream 132, which is now receiving an advertisement content packet 136.
Advertisements can be of any length and in reality there are many standard lengths used by the advertising industry. These lengths consider the transitioning time needed by processing portion 120. For example, advertisements may have a duration of 13 seconds, 28 seconds or 58 seconds, each allowing for a two-second transitioning time. In this example and for purposes of discussion, all advertisements will have a duration of 28 seconds. Returning to FIG. 2, since advertisement content 114 and advertisement content 118 each have a duration of 28 seconds, advertisement break 202 will have a duration of 62 seconds.
Returning to FIG. 1B, advertisement content packet 136 includes information similar to network content packet 124. Advertisement content packet 136 includes audio and video portions of advertisement content 114 that will be used by acquisition portion 122 to present advertisement content 114. Advertisement content packet 136 also includes a predetermined time at which the set-top box will begin to transition to either the next advertisement or to the next content data stream.
As previously discussed, processing portion 120 will instruct acquisition portion 122 to begin to transition to the next data stream after advertisement content 114 has been presented. Nothing will be presented while acquisition portion 122 is transitioning to the next data stream.
In this example, after presenting advertisement content 114, processing portion 120 instructs acquisition portion 122 to begin to transition to the second addressable advertisement. This is illustrated using FIG. 1C.
FIG. 1C illustrates distribution system 100 when acquisition portion 122 has transitioned to the second addressable advertisement.
As illustrated in the figure, advertisement content packet 136 is no longer being delivered to set-top box 102. Acquisition portion 122 has transitioned to data stream 128 and is now receiving an advertisement content packet 138.
As discussed with reference to advertisement content packet 136, advertisement packet 138 contains audio and video components of advertisement content 118, and the predetermined time when processing portion 120 instructs acquisition portion 122 to transition to the next data stream. In this example, processing portion 120 will instruct acquisition portion 122 to transition to data stream 126 after 28 seconds of advertisement content 118 has been presented. Referring to FIG. 1A and FIG. 2, set-top box 102 will continue to present network content provided by network content provider 106 and the process described above may repeat.
Returning to FIG. 2, the string of content and advertisements presented by set-top box 102 is illustrated by final content 210. As illustrated and described previously, two seconds between each transition results in dead air, wherein nothing is presented.
What is needed is a method of reducing dead air time while the set-top box is transitioning to the next data stream.